EL Library Workers Rally, Press Trustees to Hear Their Side of Contract Dispute
One year after the non-supervisory workers of the East Lansing Public Library had their unionization effort formally recognized, those employees are still without a contract despite multiple rounds of bargaining with the City of East Lansing and the ELPL administration.
Organizers of a union-organized rally outside the ELPL on Wednesday, Sept. 22, hoped the event would draw attention to their unmet contract requests. Despite a steady rainfall, the event ran from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m., purposefully coinciding with the ELPL Board of Trustees’ meeting, held at the library starting at 4:30 p.m. that day.
As ELi previously reported earlier this year, the workers rejected a contract because it did not include “just cause” disciplinary and grievance processes for contingent workers and also did not include a 2% annual pay increase. The ELPL workers rejected another contract offer made earlier this month because they did not believe that their needs were being met. Scott Dedic, who represents the workers on behalf of the UAW, told ELi before the rally that the new proposed contract also did not include a “just cause” disciplinary system, a grievance process, or a pay increase.
Dedic provided ELi with a statement signed by the bargaining committee which stated the workers’ requests, including: due process in disciplinary matters; stability in employment; fair compensation; paid time off; clearly outlined work expectations; and a voice in library work.
Prior to the rally, Library Director Kristin Shelley responded to ELi’s request for comment, stating by email, “The library supports the right of our employees to unionize, organize, and to rally. We have been negotiating in good faith with the bargaining unit for several months. While we have offered a fair contract that benefits our employees, the union, unfortunately, has rejected our proposal. We continue to hope that a compromise can be met.”
About 35 people – a mix of library workers, other UAW members, and community members – attended the rally to support the workers’ demands.
“I think the public libraries are a real value to our community, and I think the reason they are of value to the community is because the people who work there are awesome,” Susan Kalvonjian told ELi at the rally. “I do not think that this particular group who works here is very well compensated for what they do.”
Kalvonjian said she had previously been an ELPL employee and member of the bargaining team before leaving her position at the library. (She added that her views do not necessarily represent those of the bargaining team.)
A library page who gave her name only as Diana reiterated to ELi that the team is working for “just cause,” the requirement that supervisors give reasons for disciplinary actions, including termination. She is a new member of the bargaining team.
“There’s nothing for pages at this point or any contingent staff and, you know, we asked for a few hours of paid time off a year, and they said [that] after we work here five years, we can have five hours of paid time off, so that was not real fair during the pandemic,” Diana told ELi.
“The administration is getting the 2 percent raise and everyone else gets 1.5, which we don’t think is fair either, because, you know, that’s a lot for them,” she said. “Mostly we just want the library to be a safe place for everybody, a good place to work, we want people to stick around, people who care about the library like we do.”
Dennis Parker, President of UAW Local 2256, voiced his concerns about the contingent workers.
“The employees in here work hard and serve the public for about $9.65 an hour. The majority of them are part-time,” said Parker. “If they don’t like you or want to punish you, they just don’t schedule you any hours. [The workers] want access to a grievance procedure and a consistent schedule. Those are the main sticking points.”
Angelo Moreno, who leads the ELPL bargaining team, told ELi that those at the rally “are supporters of the library as an institution, and they see that the library as an institution is its workers.”
City Council Candidate Adam DeLay was the only local politician present. He told ELi, “I think that these are just basic things that employees – whether they are full-time, part-time, what have you – are entitled to. You know, for me, it’s a matter of, if we as a City say that we want to take care of our workers, then we need to be doing that.”
He said that, if elected to Council, he will do what he can to get the demands of workers met but recognized that Council’s role is limited since ELPL is governed by its own Board. (The Board is appointed by City Council.)
The ELPL workers were joined by UAW members from other union chapters in the area.
“It is good to have the support of your fellow union brothers and sisters to show that you will stand up for what’s right for your membership, so that’s why I’m here to support it,” said Amy Castanon, Vice President of Local 2256.
Around twenty people attended the Board of Trustees meeting to deliver public comment.
The commenters included UAW members involved in the negotiations, librarians from Lansing Community College and MSU, and East Lansing residents who came to show support for ELPL library workers.
Dennis Parker, who spoke to ELi at the rally, addressed the Board, telling them that some of the “current sticking points” in the bargaining process focus on the lack of a grievance procedure for library employees and no clear outline of what “just-cause” entails. Parker called these two points “bedrocks of collective bargaining.”
Iris Rogers, a former East Lansing resident and GM employee, said she was “appalled” she needed to come out to support UAW members and that there was no reason they should have to fight for a living wage.
Many commenters expressed concern and surprise that the negotiation process has taken this long over what they saw as fairly common and reasonable requests. Rikki Reynolds, a Library Circulation Specialist from LCC, said she was “shocked” to see that ELPL workers were not paid in parity with other local library workers, including those from LCC, CADL, and MSU.
She and others also referenced the mission of public libraries – free places to gather information and create community – saying this seemed to be at odds with how ELPL is treating their workers. Reynolds told the library trustees that by not accommodating the lowest-paid library workers, they are making an unequal space for both them and patrons.
Adam DeLay echoed Reynolds and asked the Board to remember that these workers have also been working through a pandemic. He said that if East Lansing is truly a progressive community, the Board needs to honor the workers’ “not unreasonable” requests.
When public comment finished, Diane Goddeeris, former East Lansing mayor and President of the Board of Trustees, told the gathered attendees that “this Board has been very grateful” to all of the library workers and that while the negotiations are ongoing, “we are not adversarial at this point” and they are “still trying to do the right thing.”
“We’ll take your comments under consideration,” Goddeeris told the crowd.
After discussing updates to construction at the ELPL, the Board members entered into a closed session with Library Director Shelley to discuss the contract negotiations.
Read ELi’s report on the discussion at the same meeting about spiraling repair costs at the East Lansing Public Library.
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